392 Evolution? The Fossils Say YES!
65 percent of Americans seem to accept evolution in some form, not the 55 percent that Gal-
lup suggested. The wording of the poll makes all the difference.
Yet another set of polls seem to confirm that the number of YECs is much smaller than
Gallup suggests and is also declining. A combined CBS/YouGov poll showed that between
2004 and 2013, the number of people accepting the statement “Human beings evolved from
less advanced life forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process”
jumped from 13 percent to 21 percent. Meanwhile, the percentage of people agreeing with
the statement “God created human beings in their present form within the last ten thousand
years” dropped from 55 percent to 37 percent over the same interval (2004–2013). According
to the analysis:
The demographics of the respondents is fairly predictable. Fewer women (37 percent)
accept some form of evolution than men (56 percent) and fewer women (13 percent)
tend to identify themselves as non-religious than men (20 percent). Older respondents
favored creationism, while respondents under the age of 30 favored evolution, whether
guided by a deity or not. The largest number of strict evolutionists was among this
youngest age group, which tells us that insisting on keeping science in science class
is working. Unsurprisingly, only 5 percent of Republicans agreed that evolution hap-
pens without a deity guiding it. The additional 30 percent of Republicans who agreed
evolution is a thing believe that their god directs it. Democrats (28 percent) are closely
followed by political independents (26 percent) in their acceptance of non-divine evo-
lution, while an additional 25 percent and 21 percent, respectively, think God drives
the evolution train. This means that more than half of non-Republicans accept evolu-
tionary science. Among Republicans, 55 percent believe the earth is less than 10,000
years old and a god created human beings in their present form. The respondents most
strongly denying evolution were Muslims, with 64 percent believing young-earth cre-
ationism and 36 percent uncertain. None of the respondents identifying as Muslim
would admit that they accepted evolution. Protestant (59 percent) and the various
Orthodox churches (53 percent) tied for the next largest group of evolution deniers.
The strongest supporters of evolution? Believe it or not, it isn’t the religiously unaffili-
ated. All of the Buddhists polled accepted evolution, although 13 percent of them said
a deity guided it. Agnostics (85 percent) accept evolution, 17 percent of whom say God
guided it. The remaining 15 percent aren’t sure. The atheist respondents throw a curve
to the poll, though. Two percent of those identifying as atheist also claim to be young
earth creationists. Since 48 atheists responded to the survey, that means one person in
there somewhere is either very confused or clicked the wrong radio button.
Other demographics spread pretty much as we might expect: the more educated
the respondent, the less likely to believe in creationism. The coasts, made up mostly of
blue states, are more accepting of evolution than the mostly-red Midwest and South-
ern states. People identifying as white were more likely than Hispanics to accept
evolution, while only 6 percent of black people participating in the poll did. The per-
centage of respondents who favor teaching creationism in public schools (40 percent)
followed the same trends among the different groupings of respondents. Younger
people opposed teaching creationism in larger numbers (42 percent), as did Demo-
crats (29 percent) and Independents (31 percent). The more educated respondents
disapproved of creationism in public schools more strongly than the less educated.